SOPHIE KOH
BY ZOË RADAS
Sophie Koh has got that good side of inertia going; she’s just released her third album Oh My Garden completely off of her own bat amongst trips to LA, she has several shows coming up across our great country, and she’s finding the time to compose her grandmother’s memoirs. “She’s 97,” Koh says warmly. “Well, we don’t know how old she is, she could be a hundred. She was sold to my grandfather in Malaysia when she was 16. No one really knows her history, and she’s been sick lately. It’s amazing how you get things done when you’re really busy,” Koh says, stupefied. “I’ve been a machine the last few weeks.” The sincerely poppy record Koh has created includes synths stretched like boiled sweets, robotic blips, and mechanised ascending glisses alongside the more traditional piano and guitar sounds of her past albums. Winter Sunglasses in particular showcases some awesome production, but the songs still hold a lot of sparse beauty. Deciding when they’re done – as she doesn’t have a typical bass/drums/guitar checklist to tick off – requires a different approach during creation. “The way I record is normally with a producer, and I choose producers that play instruments as well,” she explains. “There’s a lot of conversation between me and the producer. In the end, he’s the most important person of the whole recording process.” The producer Koh worked with on Oh My Garden was one Brad Wood, and she made four trips to his studio in LA over 18 months to work with him. Through fellow Aussie Ben Lee, Koh cultivated her musical relationship with Wood, who has an intimidating CV. “I was so nervous going over on the plane,” Koh chatters sweetly. “I’ve never been to America number one, and I’d never been to Hollywood. The picture in your head is kind of daunting. [But] when I got there, [the studio] was just in his backyard, in
his shed. He had children, and he had pets, so I did a bit of babysitting,” she laughs. “Even though it was in Hollywood, we were still sipping cups of tea and walking the dog.” In this innocuous environment, Koh and Wood spent time in the state-of-the-art studio experimenting with gadgets and sound. “What I love about Brad is, he’s such a dad,” Koh says. “Even though he’s worked with Billy Corgan and Liz Phair, I went over at a time when the American music industry was a little bit slow and people were struggling to find work. He was so happy to work with an Australian artist and was branching out to do a bit more pop stuff too. We’re friends now and he’s kind of like a dad to me.” Koh’s single I Understand features a chord progression on the piano which is contemplative and quite beautiful, and yet it comes as a surprise that she is not, in fact, a guitarist. “I’m a classical piano player,” she says succinctly. “I’m shit at guitar! When I started out in music the easiest way was to bring my guitar along to open mics and shows and stuff. Because I’m so highly trained in piano, I kind of overcomplicate things when I write on piano. It always ends up sounding like Tori Amos; it doesn’t really translate to a pop song. One day I’ll write that album, probably the next one.”
“EVEN THOUGH IT WAS IN HOLLYWOOD, WE WERE STILL SIPPING CUPS OF TEA AND WALKING THE DOG”
While recording in LA, Wood and Lee spent an entire day with Koh hooking wires from the studio to the next-door-neighbour’s, which housed a grand piano. Unfortunately, a concert piano is incredibly hard to record. If you think about it, it’s designed to be placed at the head of a hall and for the sound to touch every corner of an audience – not exactly easy to control. In the end they had to can much of the stuff they recorded, and meld what was left with electronic keys. “I don’t know how Tori Amos does it,” Koh admits simply. Her interest in the instrument is palpable though, as we get into the nuts and bolts of Amos’s well-documented love of Bösendorfer pianos. It’s not just the music that gets Koh going: her video for first single Lo-Fi is a colourful, one-shot affair
featuring members of her dance class. Filmed in Piedimonte’s supermarket in North Fitzroy, Koh and her mates from the notoriously fun Body Electric adult dance studio boogie through the aisles. “It worked out really well,” says Koh. “Sometimes I go there now and I feel a bit weird, and people look at me funny.” Pretty sure they’re waiting for you to bust out some polka, Sophie.
to him, and saw how he could carry a show. Back when he started it was just him and a drum kit, moving around to a lot of sample pads, and that was definitely an inspiration. I thought, I need a drummer, because you need live drums, you need someone bashing the crap out of them...
tweaked when we play live. I kind of like that there’s a difference between the EP structures and arrangements and the live stuff, rather than just trotting out the songs as per the record. A big hit with the live show is the TVs that we have sprawled around the stage – we play visuals that are hooked into the music on these big retro ‘70s televisions. I think the way I write is quite dramatic and I try to take audiences to another world, rather than just rocking out. I want it to be a bit of a mind trip.
SOPHIE KOH launches her new album Oh My Garden at Northcote Social Club on Friday July 13. The record is out now through her own label Crying Ninja Records.
PLUTO JONZE
BY HARRY WYNTER
Pluto Jonze is the psychedelic brainchild of Lachlan Nicholson, an earnest young guy from inner-city Sydney. After years of experimentation and self-instruction, last year he released the Pluto Jonze EP to critical acclaim, landing him triple j airplay for his first two singles Meet Me Under Neon and the catchy Plastic Bag In A Hurricane. With soaring orchestral reprises and sweetly surreal lyrics, this is an uplifting, genre-bending artist with buckets of potential. We caught up with Lachlan before he tours his latest single, See What The Sun Sees. You describe yourself as laptop-pop, which certainly has a ring to it... That kind of describes the beginning of my process – I do all the tracks myself, build up the layers in my bedroom on my laptop. These days it’s evolved into something much fuller, much more lush. Most of the songs have live drums on them, which used to be a luxury or addition, but now it’s often the backbone of the track. You’ve been playing some of these songs for ages, how long did it take to put together the EP? Yeah some of the songs like Stars To Your Feet, that’s about five-years-old, but I wouldn’t say I’ve been working on the EP for that long. I’ve made a lot of different stuff for plays, for films – I’ve got a whole treasure chest of songs and demos – the EP was just a matter of choosing songs that were of the same stylistic ilk, to give an introduction, an impression. When it comes time for the album, we’ve got ideas for a double album... Because you’ve already got the material. Yeah we’ve got heaps of material. It’s just that it’s so schizophrenic, I’m always trying to do something I’ve never done before, both in songwriting and production. It makes it a bitch to put it all together because it has to sound like it’s from same artist. It’s funny you say schizophrenic... when you’re sitting at your laptop do you ever actually talk to yourself? Like, ‘Alright Lachlan, alright Pluto - let’s jam!’
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Yeah it’s a collaborative effort! Nah, ever since I started making music it’s always been a bit of a loner situation. I guess I’ve built up a lot of experience out of necessity, having to do it by myself. You’re composing mostly on keys, did you have any classical training? I learnt piano, but not much. My dad saw the value in music even if I wasn’t doing exams, so he got this guy who basically taught me Beatles songs, cool tunes, and if there was a song that I liked he’d teach me the chords. So I guess that saved my career as a keyboardist. It’s still my favourite instrument, the most versatile. How about your laptop? Did you have any training in the tech side of things? No, not really. My dad has a background in production, so he’s always had a studio metres from my bedroom and I kind of picked it up. It’s almost like learning another instrument, learning to process sounds in another way to get textures that I like. You list The Beatles, Beck and Bowie as influences. Are there any Australian artists, or contemporary artists you’ve followed? Well, it’s going to seem like jumping on the bandwagon now, but I’ve really been a Gotye fan for a long time. I remember when I was developing my live show I looked
So where did your live band come from? Jono Linden [guitar] I knew from high school, and Joel our new drummer is a friend of friends. You know, the usual. During the live show I sort of jump around on a lot of different instruments and vocals, but they’re the engine room, they’re the guts of it. But you guys don’t jam to write songs. Not in the writing stage, no, but the songs often get
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PLUTO JONZE plays The Workers Club this Friday July 13 with Palindromes and Fairchild Republic. His single See What The Sun Sees is out digitally through StopStart/EMI.